You probably want to change the double quotes around "c:\pathname" to single quotes 'c:\pathname' to supress interpolation of the \p. You can also call programs using backtics for example:

$flg = "/?";
$dir =`dir c: $flg`;
print $dir;
[download]

You will note that the help flag /? has been interpolated into the backtics so that the command executed is the same as:

C:\>dir c: /?

The output is captured into $dir which we then print. As a general rule it is much better (read more secure, more reliable, more portable, perhaps faster) to use inbuilt perl functions than backtics or system.

cheers

tachyon

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